Serenna: Chapter One: The Mistake

in an effort to make her husband love her more, serenna enlists the help of an old hag who claims she has the answer to serena's dillema, but the spell goes horribly wrong

As midnight approached on the last day of the withering, Serenna dragged her half asleep four year old daughter out of the sleeping castle. Her stable boy was still awake, and as ordered, her horse was saddled and ready to go. She placed Cora upon the horse and lead them towards the gate she'd had left open for this very purpose.

Once outside the city wall, Serenna mounted the horse behind her sleeping daughter. The full moon lit the ground and gave her all the light she need to see. Serenna gladly pushed her horse forwards, her scarlet cape billowing in the wind behind her. Soon she would be free again, soon her husband would love her again.

An hour before dawn Serenna reached the glen with the gnarled tree along her country's boarder. This spot they had chosen a month ago as the perfect place to cast such a difficult spell. She tied her horse to a distant tree and and gently lifted her daughter off the high horse, trying not to wake her.

The old hag Serenna had enlisted to help her appeared as if out of nowhere beside Serenna to help. "I feared you would not make it in time." Her voice sounded haggard, coarse and impatient. But Serenna took no notice. "But you got here just in time." She continued happily, grinning mischievously. 

The chatter of the birds was growing with the light and Serenna was growing nervous. What if something went wrong. Magic in an imprecise art, but it was too late for second guessing now. The old hag was motioning to her.

"Place the child here." She said pointing a rough stone table carved with runes all along its sides.

Serenna gently placed Cora on the table, only just now wondering what part her daughter played in all this. About to ask, Serenna looked over at the hag and realized she had already begun chanting. Soon enough she would find out, and her husbands love would be returned to her.

The old hag's voice cackled on the wind, and it unnerved the queen. The words that the woman was chanting were in a language completely forieng to Serenna, and they sounded harsh, crude, and evil.

What happened next would change the course of the world forever. And it happened so fast Serenna didn't even have time to think.

The hag placed a small silver dagger into Serenna's hands, forced her arms high above her daughter. The blade came swiftly down and at the last moment, Cora's eyes flickered open and a shrill scream pierced the wind, filling Serenna's bones with terror. And as the blade pierced the little girls neck, silence. No screams, no shocked gasps, no triumphant laughter. Silence. Silence until a great blast shot forth and an unburning flame began consuming everything in sight.

All Serenna knew was the deafening roar in her ears as the red and black flames scorched everything in sight, and she knew traveling further than the glade, they were traversing the width of her country.

  Finally the fires ceased. Serenna rose unburned in the charred ashes of the glade around her. Her eyes fluttered over the broken, burned, and badly maimed body of the hag. Bile rising in the doomed queen's throat. And then her eyes darted to the untouched body of her daughter, covered in her own blood, a look of utter terror on her face.

Serenna vomited in the dead grass. She knew immediately the spell had failed. She had murdered her own daughter, and she had nothing to show for it.

At that moment, the warm sun peaked over the horizon bringing with it the cruel comfort of a brand new day. Serenna bitterly cursed the sky and turned her back on her country, walking across the charred boarder into her enemies territory. She would never be able to return to her husband in good graces now. She would forever more be known as the condemned Queen of Dignusterra.

Author's Note

this was originally supposed to be further along in the book, but the begining was quite boaring so i moved it up, you will learn of serena's past later in the book.... so tell me what you think!!

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[TJ]

two words:
I'm hooked